Meditative state

When a prominent Australian politician, the then Premier of Tasmania, The Honourable Jim Bacon, publicly announced in February 2004 that he had lung cancer, he was inundated with well-wishing communications sent by post, email and other means. They included 157 items of correspondence recommending a wide variety of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs). The most common CAMs recommended were meditation, Chinese medicine, "glyconutrients", juices, Laetrile and various diets and dietary supplements.

In an earlier article entitled "Meditation may predispose to epilepsy: an insight into the alteration in brain environment induced by meditation" published in Medical Hypotheses 2005:64(3):464-7, the author has hypothesized that meditation exerts predisposing influence on epileptogenesis. The hypothesis is based on certain EEG changes and electrographic features (namely hypersynchrony and coherence of EEG activity) and increase in chemical transmitters (namely glutamate and serotonin) in the brain during the course and attainment of meditation.

European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation: Official Journal of the European Society of Cardiology, Working Groups on Epidemiology & Prevention and Cardiac Rehabilitation and Exercise Physiology

BACKGROUND: Presently, complementary and alternative medicine, including both therapies and herbal/oral supplements, is used globally. Few studies have examined the use of specific therapies, separate from herbal/oral supplements, in cardiac rehabilitation. This paper presents a systematic evaluation of current research evidence related to use of specific complementary and alternative medicine therapies in secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease, with a view to making recommendations for cardiac rehabilitation.

Public health literature indicates that psychosocial stress is an important contributor to chronic disease development. However, there is scant research on the health effects of stress for minority groups, who suffer from a high burden of chronic disease. This paper provides a review of studies that examine the relationship between psychosocial stress and chronic disease for 4th world indigenous groups and African Americans. A total of 50 associational and 15 intervention studies fit the inclusion criteria for this review.

BACKGROUND: There is a pressing need for improved end-of-life care. Use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) may improve the quality of care but few controlled trials have evaluated CAM at the end of life. OBJECTIVES: To determine the strength of evidence for the benefits of touch and mind-body therapies in seriously ill patients. METHODS: Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of massage and mind-body therapies. A PubMed search of English language articles was used to identify the relevant studies.

PURPOSE: To assess attitudes toward complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and its place in the medical school curriculum and medical practice among preclinical students at Georgetown University School of Medicine (GUSOM), Washington, DC. METHOD: Two-hundred sixty-six first-year (n=111) and second-year (n=155) medical students rated their attitudes toward CAM and 15 CAM modalities in terms of personal use, inclusion in the curriculum, and use/utility in clinical practice.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this investigation was to explore the effectiveness of search strategies developed to identify trials of specific complementary therapies in a range of clinical conditions. DESIGN: All primary studies included in a series of systematic reviews were identified. An analysis of the original source of the study and search term(s) by means of which the study had originally been retrieved was carried out. Each study was then searched for in each of 6 databases (AMED, Cochrane CENTRAL, MEDLINE/PubMed, EMBASE, CINAHL, PsycINFO).

ABSTRACTOBJECTIVETo review the evidence supporting complementary and alternative medicine approaches used in the treatment of hypertension.QUALITY OF EVIDENCEMEDLINE and EMBASE were searched from January 1966 to May 2008 combining the key words hypertension or blood pressure with acupuncture, chocolate, cocoa, coenzyme Q10, ubiquinone, melatonin, vitamin D, meditation, and stress reduction.

BACKGROUND: With increasing frequency, patients with cancer and their family members are turning to the Internet to educate themselves about their disease and treatment options, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) and supportive care. However, very little is known about how national leading cancer centers represent these therapies via their websites. METHODS: Simulating the perspective of an information-seeking patient or family member, we performed a systematic analysis of the websites of 41 National Cancer Institute designated comprehensive cancer centers.